


i lost my voice , you lost your mind

by honeykaspbrak



Series: my life’s now a tragedy [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Anal Sex, Anger, Bipolar Disorder, Bisexual Carl Gallagher, Carl-centric, Complex Emotions, Depressed Carl, Gen, Guilt, Lip is an asshole, Love, M/M, Mental Illness, Self Harm, Sexual Content, Smoking, Suicidal Ideation, breakdowns, carl needs ian, carl thinks he’s losing it, drug and alcohol use mentioned, everyone is having a hard fucking time, everything is bad, ian's psychotic break, ian’s diagnosis is so hard on carl, sad shit, soft sad mickey, some canon divergence, violence mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 07:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15092078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeykaspbrak/pseuds/honeykaspbrak
Summary: the thing is, carl always thought it would be him.that’s all he’s thinking as he stands in the doorway of mickey milkovich’s bedroom, watching milkovich himself lean over the prone figure of carl’s favorite brother where he lays in the fetal position on the unmade bed.the way carl sees it, it was supposed to be him. the way he sees it, he’s halfway to insane as it is.





	i lost my voice , you lost your mind

**Author's Note:**

> first off: TRIGGER WARNING for self harm and suicidal ideation. check tags!!
> 
> title is from the damien jurado song beacon hill, which is so fucking gorgeous and sad and what i listened to on repeat while writing this. (it’s also the song gus sings fiona when she asks him to play her something worth dying for!)
> 
> anyways, i love carl gallagher with my entire heart. he deserves so much. i hope you guys like this sad ass shit.

the thing is, carl always thought it would be him. 

that’s all he’s thinking as he stands in the doorway of mickey milkovich’s bedroom, watching milkovich himself lean over the prone figure of carl’s favorite brother where he lays in the fetal position on the unmade bed. 

the way carl sees it, it was supposed to be him. the way he sees it, he’s halfway to insane as it is. lip always said so, too - _“if anyone goes the way of monica...”_ , fiona swatting his arm, hushing him, as eight year old carl sat, stunned and hurt, at the top of the stairs. 

it was ian that carl went to, stomach turning with the thought that his oldest brother, the closest thing he’d ever had to a real dad, thought he was anything like their crazy mother. their mother who up and left them when carl was barely out of kindergarten, when liam wasn’t even sitting up on his own. it was ian who shoved lip into the wall of the bedroom they all shared after that, hissing in his face as carl brushed his teeth in the bathroom. thin walls. it was ian who tucked carl into bed that night, pushing his hair off his forehead and leaning down to whisper, _“you are nothing like monica.”_

it was supposed to be carl. it was always supposed to be carl. it wouldn’t have blindsided anyone like this if it had been him. fiona wouldn’t be standing stock-still in the hallway, both hands clamped over her mouth like they’re the only things keeping her from screaming or throwing up. debbie wouldn’t be curled into herself on the end of mickey’s bed, her shaking hand hovering over ian’s foot swathed in the sheet like she can’t bring herself to touch him. 

mickey, un-fuck-with-able, south side trash mickey, wouldn’t be choking on awful, silent tears like carl has never seen him do before. he wouldn’t turn to them, eyes wild, and half-shout, _”someone wake him up. get him the fuck up. do something.”_

carl suddenly feels like if he stands in this room where his brother lays so still that he could be dead for one more second he’ll fly apart into ashes. carl (carl, who has been told that he is insane, psychotic, fucked-up, _monica_ enough times that he believes he deserves it, turns on his heel, vomits suddenly and gracelessly on the carpet in the hallway, and is out the front door before fiona can tell his name. 

it should have been him. 

—

it is not ian who finds carl chainsmoking on the roof as the sun dies a fiery death in the distance. it’s debbie, eyes pink and swollen with crying, in a shirt that carl recognizes instantly as one of ian’s workout tanks. he turns away from her teary face, taking a deep drag on the cig. 

“why the fuck you wearing his clothes? he isn’t dead.” debbie exhales raggedly. 

“it makes... i don’t know, it feels more like he’s here.” 

“he’s at the milkovich’s. you can fucking walk over there.” he hears debbie’s breathing go thick like it does whenever she’s about to cry and can’t bring himself to care. maybe he’s just intrinsically awful. born like that, will die like that. it’s more likely than not. 

debbie’s feet scrape against the shingles as she scrambles up to her feet. “fuck you, carl.” she turns and climbs back into the house through the boy’s bedroom window. right over ian’s empty bed, carl realizes with a nauseating start. 

he snuffs out the cigarette on the roof and presses the still-scalding butt of it into the skin of his left knee. the pain of it grounds him a little, in a sick fucking way. 

_carl is a danger to other students. there is something seriously wrong with him. he seems to genuinely enjoy inflicting pain. have you had him evaluated? has he seen a professional, a doctor?_

_crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy_

ian is the one who first saw the tiny scars littering carl’s limbs. ian is the one who cried and held his wrists and taught him to squeeze ice cubes or run until his lungs were fit to explode when he felt like this. ian is the one who wiped his face and dabbed antiseptic ointment onto his burns and didn’t tell fiona because carl begged him not to. south side rules. favorite brother rules. 

ian had always been carl’s, in the way that mickey was mandy’s and fiona was debbie’s before she hit puberty and started yelling so much. he’s the one who taught carl about rolling joints and sex and what it meant to want to fuck both guys and girls. 

carl almost wants to laugh at the thought that he is the bisexual and suicidal to ian’s gay and bipolar. that they’re leagues more alike than he ever would’ve thought. not that carl would really call it suicidal. he isn’t, he doesn’t think. not actually. it’s not a matter of holding a loaded gun to his head, of emptying a bottle of pills in his hand and contemplating downing them. it’s nights like this, bad nights or bad highs, when he feels hollowed and inside-out and wishes he just didn’t fucking _exist_ anymore. 

carl goes through the rest of the pack of marlboros before he climbs back inside, eyes heavy and knees stinging with a cluster of tiny burns under his shorts. he can hear fiona and veronica talking down in the kitchen, his sister sounding desperate and shaky. 

how much guilt can one person hold?  
can feeling like a burden that was always meant to be yours got cast off to the wrong person eventually kill you? 

carl sleeps downstairs on the couch because he doesn’t think he can stand being in the same room as ian’s unoccupied bed, his posters, all his things littering the floor. he shoots mickey a text as he lays on the lumpy corduroy: _how’s ian?_

mickey has practically been another brother to carl since he and ian began dating years ago. “you think your brother doesn’t tell me everything?”, handing carl a beer as he roots through his medicine cabinet for painkillers with uncharacteristic worry etched into his forehead. “you can’t fucking burn yourself like that, kid.” he can’t imagine what mickey must be going through right now. can’t imagine seeing the boy he loves stripped of himself and hung limp and unresponsive like wet laundry. 

carl tosses his phone facedown on the floor and falls into an uneasy sleep to the sound of sirens outside and his big sister’s tears. 

—

he’s awakened to a painfully bright morning and the noises of fiona making breakfast, pans banging like her hands are too shaky to set them down gentle. 

he got five texts from mickey in the night, the time stamp for all of them from after three in the morning. 

_mandy and me got a little water in him_

_carl he pissed the bed i don’t know what the fuck to do_

_how long did these episodes last with monica???_

_i could barely get him in the fucking shower. he won’t talk to us._

_shit carl i’m scared_

carl shuts his phone all the way off, tosses it back to the ground like it’s something dangerous. he can’t breathe. it was supposed to be him. 

fiona sticks her head through the kitchen doorway, looking wrecked as all hell with yesterday’s makeup still smeared under her eyes. 

“hey, carl, babe. you’re awake! want some pancakes? v brought over the batter.” she sounds bone-tired.

“i think we need to go help mickey. he texted. it doesn’t sound good.”

“i was over there like an hour ago. he kicked me out. didn’t want to hear anything about the clinic or meds.” carl rolls over, buries his head in the couch cushion that smells like weed and piss (like frank). 

“fuck.” he doesn’t know what else to say. he doesn’t think there is anything else to say. “do you think mickey can take care of him?” his knees hurt like hell under the scratchy blanket that fiona must’ve tossed over him in the night. 

“i sure fucking hope so, kid.”

—

carl skips class, turns off the busy road that leads to the school and instead making his way down to the water. he texts a boy from school that he has some kind of on-and-off thing with to meet him there and they fuck under a rocky outcropping. it’s quiet and fast, carl’s cheek pressed into thin gravelly grass and his back arched up into the sort of intoxicating pain that’s even better than the burn of cigarette butts. he cries out when he comes, vision flashing white. they kiss when it’s over, quick and sloppy and full of clashing teeth, then the boy is buckling his jeans and climbing away over the rocks. 

carl lies on his side on the rough ground so he won’t have to sit on his aching ass. finally, finally tears come, sliding sideways down his face and collecting in the crook of his arm. he feels wrung-out, dirty, outside of his own skin.

all he wants is to talk to ian about it.

—

he gets a text that afternoon from fiona, telling him that lip is home. he doesn’t want to see lip. he’s filled with rage for all the things lip said, for him leaving the family for a fancy ass school, for being book smart enough that he’ll be able to do something that isn’t collecting trash in the back of the yards, for leaving them to deal with all of this alone. carl wants to hit him so hard that he goes back in time and never says a single thing about one of them turning out like monica. _and look at us now, lip. you were wrong, you fucking smart asshole. you guessed wrong._

instead of going home, carl finds himself on the doorstep of the milkovich house. mickey lets him in, the dark circles under his eyes crater-like and an unexplained gash packed with blood drying above his right eyebrow. 

“is ian here?” carl asks. he’s taller than mickey, now, but less muscular. mickey is lean and scrappy, power in his arms and tattooed fists. 

“yeah. yeah, he’s still... fucking sleeping.” carl’s heart twists at how goddamn miserable mickey looks. guilt stabs through him again. 

should have been him. 

“i saw your texts.” mickey pulls him out of the doorframe with a rough hand to his shoulder and shuts the door behind them. “i...” there’s nothing to say. there’s nothing. 

“you hurled on my carpet yesterday.” mickey doesn’t sound mad, just hollow. which is somehow worse. 

“fuck, yeah, i’m... sorry.”

“don’t worry about it. fiona helped clean up. anyways. you wanna see him?” mickey looks so broken down and exhausted that carl wants to step forward and hug him before they both fly apart. he doesn’t. he nods. 

the light in mickey’s room is low, blinds pulled most of the way down and the bedside table lamp off. ian is still laying there in the same fucking position that carl left him in yesterday. he has to fight to not turn straight around and run out again. 

he forces himself to cross the room and kneel next to mickey’s bed, eye level with his favorite brother. 

ian’s eyes are closed, his skin terrifyingly pale, his hands bunched into fists and pressed against his forehead. the only movement are the sheets shifting with how ragged breaths. mickey sits down on the other side of the bed, places a tentative hand on ian’s shoulder. carl hates seeing him so hesitant to touch his boyfriend. ian, who is a hugger and hand holder and a casual kisser, leaning over the kitchen table to catch mick’s lips in his own over family breakfast. 

“ian, babe? carl’s here.” ian doesn’t open his eyes. 

“ian. hi.” carl doesn’t know what to say to him. ian, who taught him everything he knows. more than lip and fiona and debbie combined. how to hold a knife, to brew coffee, to shave, to say sorry like you mean it. ian. “wake up, please, wake up. we need you. mickey needs you. _i_ need you, ian.” nothing. not a twitch, a blink, nothing. 

something deep inside carl snaps, flooding him with so much pain that he thinks he might die right here on mickey’s bedroom floor. 

“fuck you, ian!” he’s screaming now, so loud that it scares him. he doesn’t have control over his words, his body, his brain, anything anymore. he’s losing his mind. _crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy._ “fuck you! get the fuck up!” carl hears mickey take a sharp gasp of air, sees him drop his head into his hands through his peripheral vision. 

“you can’t just fucking lay here! you have to talk to me, ian! i need you to fucking talk to me!” carl is shaking so hard he can’t feel his hands. there’s something wrong with him. 

“you have to fucking help me! i’m going insane, ian. fucking insane. you’d know a thing about that, wouldn’t you?” mickey is trembling, wracked with horrible, choking sobs. carl can’t shut off his words. 

“i got fucked today! by that boy i told you about, ian. do you remember that? do you, ian? you have to fucking talk to me. just _fucking talk to me_. i need you to tell me why i feel like this. so- so- fucking... i don’t know, impure! you’re not the only one who’s so fucked up, ian, _please_.” carl’s voice cracks, throat so raw from yelling that he thinks he might throw up in this house again. mickey says _carl_ in this barely audible voice. svetlana is standing in the doorway, a hand over her mouth. the baby is squalling somewhere in the distance. carl wants to fucking die. 

“you’re my fucking brother! i need you to help me, ian! open your fucking eyes. you have to talk to me. we can go to the hospital. together. together. ian. i love you. fucking talk to me. i need you. i _love_ you. please.” carl has never felt this much hurt coursing through him in his life. not when he lay awake, scared half to death, in foster care. not when he was pistol whipped on the streets and would’ve been left there to die if mandy milkovich hadn’t found him by sheer luck. not when the first girl he ever loved left him without so much as an explanation. never. 

he falls forward, forehead hitting the edge of the bare mattress that ian is slumped on. he doesn’t remember when he started sobbing, but the tears are coursing down his face, hot and wet as fresh blood. he’s losing his mind. his brother and his purity and his mind, all in a matter of hours. he has never believed in a god but he squeezes his eyes shut and prays for the floor to open and swallow him, just to absolve him of even an ounce of this pain. ian. ian. ian. please. 

then there’s a strong, familiar hand on the back of his head. cool, familiar lips brushing his dirty hair. 

_”carl.”_

**Author's Note:**

> i really really hope you all enjoyed this. please do comment, i love nothing more than hearing feedback!!


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